As you may recall, e360 Insight wasn’t exactly pleased when Spamhaus labeled it a spammer last year; in fact, e360 Insight’s owner sued the UK-based company. Now, in an ironic taste-of-your-own-medicine twist, e360 Insight is being sued for (allegedly) spamming an individual in California.
William Silverstein “claims in the suit to have received at least 87 spam messages promoting the defendants’ websites since May 2005,” according to the Channel Register’s John Leyden. “These messages violated Federal anti-spam laws and California state laws,” his report continues, and “Silverstein is asking for the court to apply an injunction against the defendants along with the imposition of statutory and punitive damages.”
Considering that the only “news” on e360 Insight’s homepage consists of two developments in the Spamhaus case (and one of those occurred some time ago, in October of 2006), these fresh allegations are sure to grab the company’s attention. Also – if his past behavior is any indication – e360 Insight’s owner, David Lindhardt, may make this a confrontation worth watching.
Leyden’s “bootnote,” in which he characterizes the man’s behavior as “increasing[ly] strident,” provides a humorous sample of Linhardt’s antics. The owner “has entertainingly progressed to describing Spamhaus as ‘nothing more than a vigilante, cyber terrorist organisation with a dangerous God complex,’” Leyden observed.
Uh-huh. Well, in any event, that’s the man whom William Silverstein should soon face in court. There’s some debate (as in the comments section of this Techdirt article) over what it would mean for Spamhaus if Silverstein wins, but a reversal of prior rulings seems unlikely. Just the same, this lawsuit should – for any number of reasons – be a very interesting one.
